


his village, his people

by Rosse



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, Multiple chapters, much tragic many sad, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosse/pseuds/Rosse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night of the Kyuubi attack, Minato and Kushina make decisions that change things dramatically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I... genuinely have no idea. I started thinking about an AU where Iruka's parents were saved and then it morphed into "what if Kushina got her way" and then this happened.
> 
> Oh, and re: Iruka's parents, I'm guessing his mother is ANBU because in chapter 503, her flak vest isn't the typical chuunin/jounin one and looks more like the ANBU one?

The world around him burns. Screaming civilians, an army of shinobi that hide their fear as they battle on, as they save people and do all they can to stop Konoha from falling into pieces around them. He zips from one end of the village to the other, placing Kushina and Naruto in safety in the apartment, grabs his coat because _dammit_ he is the Yellow Flash, Fourth Hokage of Konogakure no Sato, and the people will _know_ that he is with them. He works on instinct, flitting through the village in a way that’s more for show than practicality - it’s a morale booster, a way of injecting hope into the villagers (both civilian and shinobi) - and doing what he can with as little chakra as possible to bring people to safety. The village is going to need so many repairs after this, he thinks with a wry grin, deflecting and teleporting a bijudama from hitting a group of children barely hidden by the wreckage of a former bookstore. Their tears barely audible over the roars of the Kyuubi, but he hears them anyway and Minato suppresses the shudder that passes over his spine. He suppresses the thoughts and worry, for another moment.

“You’re safe,” he tells them, though his words and thoughts are directed more at a head of red hair and a tiny newborn back in their home, gesturing at a couple of jounin nearby to take care of the kids and get them somewhere safe. They comply without a second thought, gathering the kids and telling him that there’s a few barriers erected towards the forests for the children. A terse nod is his only reply before he gets into the fray.

After all, he can’t let Sarutobi-sama have _all_ the fun.

A few of his seals have broken in the madness, he realises with a frown when teleporting to the south end of the village where the Kyuubi is rampaging becomes impossible, and he settles for going to the nearest area and making his way there on foot. The chakra just gets fouler, darker, more overwhelming. That he, or any other shinobi, manages to fight through it and co-ordinate such a last minute evacuation and defence brings him a sense of detached pride. His people. His shinobi. They can do this. With a pop, he finds himself by a building that the Kyuubi’s malevolence has yet to strike down and surrounded by shinobi - ANBU, Jounin, Chuunin, it no longer matters. If they can move, they can help. The pride grows, and he holds onto it tightly, letting it warm him, letting it quell the dread and fear that chokes him. He has his village. His people.

 _He_ will not defeat this. _Konoha_ will defeat this.

“Hokage-sama!” An ANBU shouts and he turns to her. She’s devoid of her mask, like every other person in the ANBU uniform he’s seen tonight, and gripping her ninjato tightly. “We can’t transport anyone else!” Behind her, another shinobi battles with a child - his son, judging by the family resemblance - and yells that they can’t go back to the apartment now, he’ll have to deal without his weapons and you can’t even use them anyway you stupid boy your graduation exam is next month!

The ground tremors dangerously and the building cracks. He bites down on his thumb and flies through seals, summons Gamaken and orders him to take everyone out of here. The ANBU looks at him with tears in her eyes and sniffs them back with a nod and a bark for everyone to _move their asses_ , already!

Gamaken springs away before the building collapses and he jumps into the fray just as the Kyuubi skids out of the gates. He doesn’t have time to think, so he hopes that Gamaken got everyone out safely as he dispels Gamaken and summons Gamabunta instead. He’s got to hold the Kyuubi down long enough to mould chakra and get them both out of here, and he can feel that there isn’t nearly enough - he’s teleported too much, saved too many people. He tries to ignore the Kyuubi’s suffocating chakra and concentrates on the cool October air instead. Concentrates on the little silence he can grasp and feels power flow into him, a diluted version of nature chakra gathering - not enough to activate sage mode, he isn’t good enough at it anyway - that boosts his reserves just enough to...

Pop, and he’s dragged the Kyuubi to the middle of nowhere, where only trees and stone will be damaged, instead of lives. Exhaustion pulses at his temples, his vision blurring at the edges, but he can’t stop yet. He returns home in the blink of an eye, before the Kyuubi’s even realised what happened, and drags Kushina out with Naruto because it has to be done. He cringes inwardly as time and space distort around the three of them and he can only work on autopilot because this is not the legacy he wanted to leave. The legacy that burns bright and quick and leaves his child with a demon sealed inside of him.

But he cannot think of any other option.

Kushina feels too weak in his arms, too unlike herself and her exhaustion is beyond anything he can imagine, but she complies with duty immediately and her chakra bursts from her in clinking, blinding chains that surround the forest and the beast in something unbreakable. Naruto screams and he cannot understand, cannot wrap his mind around Kushina. He’s never been able to. She remains something beyond this world, blessed with determination and strength that he has never seen in any other shinobi, in any other being, ever. She fights and fights endlessly, even when logic and tradition and science say she should be dead.

“I’ll drag the nine-tails back... and die with it inside me...”

His heart seems to stop. Time stops in a way even Hiraishin doesn’t accomplish, and suddenly everything is silence. The Kyuubi’s howls and Naruto’s screams wash over him and there’s nothing but a throbbing, pulsing silence in his ears, deafening him. The dread he’s been fighting off since this day began returns full force and he can’t keep his shinobi’s mask up, cannot remain a fighter. He grips Naruto tighter, that tiny, frail body in his hands like nothing.

Kushina never stops smiling. She says thank you and he breaks. She is everything that made him in this world. She is... she is...

“I can’t think of anything beyond ‘I’d be so happy’.” And the tears finally come, the ones of loss that he had so naively hoped - even as the Kyuubi was torn out of Kushina’s stomach while he lay Naruto in the safety of their home. Of their home. Not of his. It would never be a home without her and now he’s losing her. A perfect world disappearing, fading around him like ashes after the fire and all he can do is cry. He can’t even stop...  
“We can use our last bit of chakra to see Naruto one more time!” He explains the plan as quickly as he can, working through the seals she taught him, spinning them so they’ll be able to see Naruto. So that Konoha can have the greatest chance and the tailed beasts can remain in balance amongst the villages as it is supposed to be.

Naruto continues to cry and he steels himself, grinds his teeth and forgets - for once - how horrible the feel of enamel screeching against itself is. This is the only solution with their limited time and resources. The best solution they have. He is the Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, and he has a duty to protect the interests of Konoha at the cost of his life, just as any other shinobi would.

“He’s... our son...” A roar, a howl echoes through the clearing and Kushina’s chains tighten, pull and he’s too late. Dammit.

“Kushina!” The shout tears itself from his throat, hoarse and terrified. “You can’t!” The Kyuubi claws at the ground, digs trenches as the chains wrap around him and pierce his chakra, pinning him into submission and dragging him back into his previous host.

“I... can. He’s _our son_. You have to be there, at least... let me have that...” The pressure of the Kyuubi lessens, disappears as Kushina uses the last of her life to re-seal the Kyuubi and his protests die on his tongue, choked by tears. His hands shake against Naruto and for the first time in years, helplessness sets in.

“Kushina... I- I-...”

“I know... M-me too...”

“You always win.”

“Yep!” Her laughter drowned by coughing, Kushina collapses with a smile and he falls to his knees, shaking as he jostles Naruto and tries to stop his cries. Sarutobi appears at his side, gently wresting Naruto away from him and shushing the boy with the experience of a grandfather.

All is still.


	2. o n e → i don’t think that it’s going to rain again today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Konoha's fallout is seen, Iruka waits, and the Hokage learns many things.

“Sarutobi-sama!” The ANBU part, soldiers obeying their superiors, when the Sandaime Hokage - retired for less than a decade - marches his way into the Hokage’s office, barking orders and wrapped in his battle fatigues; a powerhouse of a leader, devoid of the usual kind smiles and patience so many of the younger shinobi have come to expect from him. The Kyuubi has been... neutralised, and Sarutobi wastes no time organising the repairs, sending out ANBU to inspect damages and find anyone who hasn’t been corralled into a bunker or seal. Report death tolls, salvage anything that can be salvaged - like scavengers in their own village, pecking at the pieces of a burning wreck. He collapses into the chair - the old, straight-backed wooden thing Sarutobi had kept after Tobirama-sensei’s reign replaced by Minato for something much more comfortable, and Sarutobi’s old bones and battle-aching muscles appreciate the cushy softness that wraps around him - and drags his hands across the well-worn wood of the old desk he bought for himself just before the third war, grounding himself with its familiar grooves and indentations. The night air comes in cool and mild through the open windows and the scent of smoke and plaster lingers through the breeze, making it impossible to forget what lies outside.

“Hokage-sa--” Genma trails off as he walks in, senbon tight between his teeth. “Sarutobi-sama?” He asks, blinking lazily, dark eyes surrounded by the shadows of exhaustion that draw every face in Konoha tight and hollow. The pause doesn‘t last long, he straightens up and gets to business. “Well. We checked the fifth bunker. Three thousand people - didn’t even know it could hold that many.” He grimaces, and Sarutobi threads his fingers together and rests his chin on his hands, holding back the sigh. It couldn’t. Bunker Five, while the largest of Konoha’s underground bunkers, should only hold two thousand and eight hundred people and Sarutobi can’t even imagine what it feels like down there.

“Move two hundred as soon as possible. It’s over capacity,” he instructs, voice dull and thick with age and exhaustion, breaking the weave of his fingers to wave a hand vaguely in instruction. Eleven underground bunkers, each holding over two thousand people. Several more overground ones pepper the forests around the edge of the village, holding anywhere from five hundred to five thousand people. The academy can hold ten thousand if all its wings and buildings still stand, and the hospital up to fifty thousand - squashed like sardines and unable to work, meaning it wasn’t really an option. He pulls out a piece of paper detailing all the locations and capacity numbers and exhales long and languid, clean air rather than tobacco-saturated. The Hokage Tower will be able to hold the flood of leftover people, thankfully. “And let people know that checks will be taking place through the night while you’re there. We should be able to send people home in the morning.” If they have one, Sarutobi adds to himself, jaw tight. He doesn’t yawn, forces it down with every bit of determination he possesses and waits for Genma to leave.

Genma blinks and stands across from the desk. “Eh, Sarutobi-sama. What happened to...” He trails off at the weary look levelled at him and swallows. “Never mind.” Waving off the question, Genma chews his needle, flicks his tongue against it and bows himself out, the look in his eyes that same one Sarutobi sees in every shinobi he passes. Dark, empty, hateful. This attack differs from war, from battle, from enemies from other lands and spies. Domestic problems always do; they drain away hope and fire in a way that external wars cannot, leaving people with the realisation that they do not get to blame anyone else for this. The failing can only lie with Konoha - not enough protections, not enough...

Sarutobi sighs and signs a leave of absence sheet for Minato before summoning an ANBU to deliver it and a summons for the inevitable enquiry that the Council will request. One more ANBU heads out to Danzo, to Homura and Koharu, summoning them after they’ve rested - if, indeed, they’ll rest at all. So much to do, so little time to rest and his teammates have never been ones to sit on the sidelines when Konoha’s safety is threatened.

“Kimiko, could you bring me a coffee?” The chuunin receptionist looks up from the papers she’d been shuffling and blinks as if she didn’t notice his appearance or presence, her grey eyes staring out past him and beyond the office windows - another look Sarutobi has seen too much of tonight.

“Uh, y-yes!” Her hands tremble and she drops a file, spilling papers all over the floor with a reaction that would have been considered delayed even for a civilian. Sarutobi stands up, rubbing his temples as he goes to help. Tonight would be a very long night if his best administrators were in shock and using their job to distract themselves.

“Go make the coffee, Kimiko-chan,” he orders, not unkindly, moving slowly around her when she flinches. She jerks her head in a nod and disappears, wringing her hands as she does so.

* * *

The streets of Konoha remain silent, too quiet. Even in the dead of night, the village always retained some sort of noise, a low hum of activity - the buzz of drunks and nearly-silent footfalls of shinobi across rooftops. Nothing but the shifting of rubble and shouts of shinobi punctuate the dead night air - icy cold and completely still, hanging heavily around them all even without the Kyuubi’s suffocating chakra and Asuma suppresses a shudder by ducking into a building that still mostly stands, shoving his hands into his pockets. There’s nothing here, nothing but broken tables and shattered vases. No signs of life in this room, and he grumbles and tests a broken support beam blocking his way to the rooms upstairs, shoving it lightly with a little chakra propelled into his hands. The wall crumbles, covering him with dust and pelting him with pieces of plaster and brick.

Well, that’s a no.

Footsteps outside snap broken wood and crunch against bits of rubble, a signal of non-threatening presence - two, in fact, Asuma notes as wood cracks under heavy, deliberate steps. He turns his head, looking through a shattered window as his fingers run over the impact cracks in the wall. Two familiar heads turned towards the house across the street; glossy black, perfectly set hair that somehow gleams in the dull moonlight and a mess of silver hair made dull grey by debris.

“Oi, Kakashi, Gai! Found anything?” Asuma brushes dust out of his hair and off his chuunin vest, leaning into the wall. Not that he ended up any cleaner - plaster dust always seemed so very clingy. Just like that time when dad decided to remodel the Hokage compound. Ugh. Gai manages a smile and Kakashi a blink, about as good as it can get for the circumstances. Gai leans into Kakashi, brushes him with his shoulder - _your turn to talk_ \- but Kakashi’s attention turns to something above Asuma’s head, in the floor he can’t reach via the stairs.

“Can you get upstairs that way?” Kakashi asks, gesturing with a shrug of his shoulder and tick of his head, hands in pockets. Asuma shakes his head - he’s checked the beam over again and again but all that’s come from it is more affirmation that moving it would bring down the floor upstairs. Kakashi glances at Gai as Asuma hops out of the broken window.

“Up we go?” he asks, glancing towards the first floor window. Nothing can be seen, but a faint smell of something in the air makes Asuma concentrate on trying to sense whatever caught Kakashi’s attention. His legs move immediately in response, running up the wall of the house the second he feels the flicker of weak chakra indicating the presence of someone upstairs, behind Kakashi and Gai in a single file dash up the narrow space between the wall and the shattered windows. Glass shards scattered around the floorspace by the window - knocked in by a staff gone astray. A quiet whimper comes from opposite them, hidden under a fallen wardrobe in the modern style room.

“I believe this is a practice staff,” Gai comments, squatting and running his fingers over the weapon, lifting it up with ease and testing the weight and balance with one hand and long-held experience. A moment later he pulls the scroll off his back and begins to formulate a seal for the staff, brush strokes quick and precise.

“Last minute weapon, then?” Kakashi asks, pulling the wardrobe back into a standing position as Asuma kneels down by the body beneath it, whispering soothing words and comfort to the teenage civilian girl probably half-crushed by the thing and surrounded by clothes.

“Most likely. I know of no practice area nearby,” Gai answers, finishing the script and activating it with a seal. Asuma moves, checking the girl’s injuries with his eyes. Not as bad as they could have been, but - like many people - she’ll require proper medical attention as soon as possible.

Asuma sighs, picking the girl up - at least she wasn’t bleeding - and waving to Kakashi and Gai before running down the wall with a sobbing civilian in his arms.

_Would she even get treatment?_ He wonders.

* * *

The space in the bunker that Iruka’s parents claimed looks like some sort of jumble sale, he thinks with a groan and a smile. Dad really went all out in his sealing scroll, bringing everything that wasn’t bolted down with them. Leaning back on a cabinet that’s haphazardly thrown against the wall, he grabs a scroll and spends his time reading. With his mother running off to help her ANBU colleagues, his father had sought out some of the other shinobi who were allocating space to civilians, trying to calm them down.

Theory of genjutsu greets him, dull explanations on chakra control that the academy likes to push on its students and Iruka _doesn’t get why_. He knows no one who finds diatribes on the movement of chakra helpful. But his eyes slowly roam the page, barely taking in words because his heart still hammers in his chest and the only thing he’s thinking about isn’t how pointless genjutsu theory is. He doesn’t see words, but flashes of buildings being destroyed, of his parents screaming and flashes of all the things that could have been - that would have happened, had the Hokage not stepped in.

He closes his eyes, tears threatening to spill over.

They’re safe. And next time - next time, he’ll be a proper shinobi and capable of helping them defend Konoha.

* * *

There’s one room at Konoha hospital that doesn’t have an overspill of refugees - a room full of little children in their cots, crying or sleeping, or tossing and turning. Minato stands in a corner, his eyes locked on the nearest cot, dull and dry - itching as the clock behind him ticks over to the dawn. 6am. He’s been up for twenty four hours now and seen too much - his wife now dead, his son wailing miserably -- those kyuubi-induced whiskers he was born with standing stark against his cheeks --, and his village half-destroyed.

The door opens, Sarutobi making his way in, quiet and mundane. All the children here seem healthy, but Minato stares at his son like Naruto will crumble into dust any second.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Sarutobi begins, coming to stand beside his successor, voice low. Minato finally glances up, the stress of the past day etched painfully on his face.

“I can keep working.” The non-sequitur is punctuated by Minato lifting up the crumpled leave sheet up, tilting his head back until he hits the wall with a gentle ‘thunk’. “I’d like to keep working,” he corrects himself, tongue between his teeth. Sitting in his apartment, worrying over his child and replaying the evening over and over again would be no way to get anything done. Sarutobi watches him, head tilted upwards and a soft smile ghosting over his lips.

“Very well. It was only an offer - albeit one I think you should consider.” When Minato continues to stare at his son silently, Sarutobi exhales and nods to himself. “Evacuation and salvage expeditions have been started. They should be completed by this evening.”

“Good,” Minato rasps, tearing his eyes from the now sleeping infant. “Have you sent out investigation teams?” The emotion can’t stay out of the question, words catching in his throat. How could such sensitive information have escaped the few people privy to it?

“Not yet,” Sarutobi admits, his hands clasped behind his back and eyes flickering towards Naruto’s cot. “How is he?”

“They said he’s fine. A normal, healthy baby boy.” Minato’s voice cracks and he bows his head, eyes burning with dry tears - his mourning leaving him with nothing but dust in his eyes. The echo of the clock as it ticks forward forward ever forward ricocheting through his skull with each passing second. “Sarutobi, we need to dis-“

His words snap shut as the window flies open and slams shut behind the entrance of Minato's teacher, Sarutobi's student. Jiraiya winces as the babies stir and wail, their responses to the sudden intrusion driven by discomfort and unfamiliarity with disturbance.

“Damn it,“ he groans, all apologetic shrugs and a hand messing up his hair. Kids... well, Jiraiya remained a hermit, a man with no home, for many reasons – these were among them, in a way. Once they learned to talk? Not so bad. But as babies? The man shifts awkwardly past the cots and towards the forms of his frozen student and mentor.

“Why are you here, Jiraiya? I thought you were tailing... potentials.“ Sarutobi looks up at the man as he plucks a scroll from the depths of his robes and slips it over to Minato without a word and the look of a man who has seen more than he can believe. “Jiraiya, what happened?“ Sarutobi presses as Minato's eyes scan the cyphered message handed to him.

“Lots of things,“ Jiraiya finally replies, waiting for Minato's attention to leave the bullet points of Things Noticed While Tailing Orochimaru and return to the present, where Jiraiya stands in a place he isn't meant to be, to deliver news he's not sure he believes. “I heard about the birth in a village on the outskirts. Someone spilled the news in a big way, Minato.“ No surprise registers on either Minato's or Sarutobi's face – rather, grim lines form around Minato's eyes, hardening the bright blue that had been clouded by sorrow. “And-“ Jiraiya inhales, trying to delay the words that wanted to spill forward, because they sounded _crazy_ , they sounded like the words of a shinobi who has seen too much war and lost their grip on reality.

“What? And what?“

“I think I fought the man who summoned the Kyuubi.“

It's Sarutobi who speaks first - with a tone urgent and authoratative, reminiscent of the way he'd speak when Jiraiya was a genin, too prone to pulling pranks without thinking. A father scolding his child: “Who was he?“

“I think – I think it was Uchiha Madara.“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hey! Life... is a bitch and I'm really forgetful? But I did, eventually, kick myself enough that I could finish the plot points I wanted. Apologies for any weird formatting - I switched from google docs to open office so things may be a bit funky.
> 
> (And I was drinking while I finished this off sooooo...)


End file.
